This was crossposted to the Mermen mail list.

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Finally, 7 months after our equipment trailer was stolen in Las
>Vegas, 75% of our stolen equipment has been recovered and returned
>to us. This has been quite an adventure. How much gear we got back
>appears to be some kind of amazing miracle. Our problems in getting
>authorities, store owners to be more cooperative in getting our
>equipment returned were solved by many of you, friends of the MERMEN
>who created a a big stir regarding the our difficulties/problems in
>retreiving our gear. We eventually received full and unconditional
>cooperation from the Kalispell police who, smoothed over the red
>tape. Then issued warrants to all the parties: music stores, pawn
>shops, individuals who purchased equipment, reluctant to return but
>in posession of our equipment( and also the person who stole our
>gear and was selling it in Kalispell.) We were able to do this
>without the expense of an attorney.
> Jennifer, Jaime and Sonie Sampson drove to Kalispell, (2,700 miles
>round trip through snow and ice) 2 weeks ago and picked up the gear.
>Extra special Big Thanks to Sonie for being sooooo motivated and
>taking the initiative, volunteering her time and vehicle for the
>trip. You rock girl.
>Here is what came back:
>Jim's red strat
>Jim's blue strat-used on the song CURVE
>complete effects rack with all pedals, power supplies, patch cables,
>power cables, power strips. back up effects rack.
>picks, strings, tuners , tools.
>Jennifer's natural Jazz Bass
>and her newer SVT amplifier head
>All of Martyn's drums with hardware
>Jaime's LCD video projector and DVD player
>6 boxes of MERMEN CDs
>Jennifer's fat cable back came back untouched and exactly as
>she had packed it.
> What didn't come back were 2 of Jim's guitars, Jennifer's fretless
>jazz bass, Jennifer's 1971 vintage SVT amp/speaker setup. two of
>Jim's Dual Showmans are still missing and both of the Fender Speaker
>cabinets are gone. We are all thankful for getting some of this back
>. I was quite a surprise when the equipment showed up six months
>later in Kalispell after being gone without a trace.
> Jennifer, Jaime and Sonie were able to search the impounded van of
>the person who was selling our equipment in Kalispell. Jennifer
>found a couple of pictures of the person in his van. Jennifer
>remembered seeing him at our Las Vegas Hard Rock show. He stayed for
>the whole show. He goes by the nickname "the German" in Kalispell.
>He seems to have left a copy of "THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD
>REICH" in one of Jennifer's bags. You will get the big picture of
>the scene if you check out the POV documentary made about Kalispell,
>Montana called THE FIRE NEXT TIME. Big thanks to all of you who
>helped us with the gear return
> Happy Holidays,